


To Work Mine End Upon Their Senses

by seepingout



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 16:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3816634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seepingout/pseuds/seepingout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>An AU of the CONCACAF Cup if magic existed.  Not really a story so much as a slice of universe.</p>
    </blockquote>





	To Work Mine End Upon Their Senses

**Author's Note:**

> An AU of the CONCACAF Cup if magic existed. Not really a story so much as a slice of universe.

It's ten minutes until the performance of the anthems.

The arena is starting to really fill, spot-glows no longer the main source of light as ticket holders arrive at their seats.  The electric lights are starting to come on and the mist layer is almost finished absorbing into the field.

The Regulators are casting. A few fizzles and flashes dot the pitch. Nothing big enough to cause an Inspector to investigate, most likely over-zealous teenagers who want an eye on their favourite player or to try to tip the odds in favour of their team, the usual. She'd been at a game that was delayed two hours while an Inspector reviewed the pitch for cheating or sabotage only to discover it was an un-triggered display from a previous event. They've all seen the vids of the incident at Anfield. Poor Rooney. It took two hours for the Regulators to get the tomatos to stop hitting him. The old couple who'd managed to find a hole in the pitch-guard ended up minor celebrities for it, the Regulator who hadn't quite done his job did not fare so well.

She's not in the starting eleven, Coach still thinks she's not caught back up from her injury. The Doctors have cleared her and she's played a whole season for her club, but somehow that's not enough. She joins her fellow non-starters on filing out to the bench and settles in. She claps politely as the starters file out, shake hands, and line up for the anthems.  The other team's anthem starts and she is embarrassed by how pathetic the display is. Everyone knows they barely have enough money for essentials and have to rely on castings by tournament staff, but the apathy is so apparent it might as well be a middle finger. In a minute, when their anthem starts, it will be even more glaring an insult. She wishes Barnie was with the team right now. Barnie has a knack for finding a way to skim a pitch-guard to add her artistic skills to anthem displays when this kind of thing occurs. The first few times Barnie did it, the casters kept their mouths shut and took the credit since her additions had been so seamless, but then a particularly sensitive commentator from one of the TV channels noticed and uncovered what she was doing. She knows that's what Barnie is doing now since she didn't make roster; helping coach at Stanford and designing anthem and honour displays for professional sports teams in the area. She's happy Ashlyn got the second goalkeeper position, but without Barnie "filling in", the displays will just smack of favouritism. The Star Spangled Banner starts and she's right. The display is huge, just a bit too bright, and unmistakably the work of well-paid specialists. It's an impossible to ignore illustration of the fact that they have more money put into their team than every other team in the tournament combined. She sees a few small displays over the stands, mostly over groupings of younger girls, probably local soccer teams, and a particularly enthusiastic but hideous display she thinks is supposed to be of Alex comes from what looks like a couple of drunk middle-aged men. She's glad that she doesn't inspire that particular variety of interest in their sport and wonders if they even care that Alex isn't there.

The anthems end and she sees the tell-tale shimmer of the shield go up between the stands and the pitch. She ignores the refs and the team captains, that's always the same; she discovered when she first started as a pro that different Regulators cast their shields differently, the TV cameras never picked it up. She likes the net weavers, there's something beautiful in the way glimmering strands flatten into a solid, clear shield, but the reverse waterfall building the shield up now isn't bad either. Tobin elbows her and she turns to look where her friend is pointing just in time to see a spot-glow impact off the shield. There's a boy who looks about eight gesturing at it wildly while the adults he keeps looking to seem to be hiding grins. If her kid, if/when she has them, could un-anchor a spot-glow she'd be proud too, even if he did figure it out just to throw the thing. The remaining spot-glows go clear just as the ref's whistle blows to start the game, and she turns her attention back to the pitch.

\---

Julie is scowling-not-scowling in the back of the room. She can't blame the girl, an alternate who only made roster due to Dunn being injured and then made to feel worse about her position on the team by being the only player not to see a single second of game time in the whole tournament, Julie has a right to be upset. Abby is too happy near her and she can see the shimmers of instictive charms from the forward taking hold of Julie until she's happy they won and not dwelling on her own lack of role. Abby never means it, but she's low level enough to have never qualified for training and games wear out her control. Julie will get used to it, if she manages to stay on the team.

A flitter hits the side of Syd's head and she swats at it before throwing a water bottle at Pinoe. The flitter fades as Syd and Pinoe get in a playful shoving match. She notices something out of the corner of her eye and nudges Engen out of the way of an errant charm from Abby. Whit gives her a curious look which clears when she nods her head towards the still too cheerful forward. Thankfully most of the team has no real ability, but of course the most exuberant are the ones that do, herself included.

The coaches are giving them a few minutes to get it all out of their systems and finish their celebrations, but they'll be in soon, so she focuses on her own post-game routine.

\---

The make-up woman is trying to spell away her freckles. This isn't her first media blitz, it's not even the first interview of the day, but this is definitely new. If Carli was at all the kind to laugh at it, she'd make a joke about Irish persecution being alive and well. She doesn't. The interviews they've been through already have made a point of bringing up Hope's situation and Carli, being the more senior member of the team, has been handling the majority of those questions. She knows it's good for solidifying her place on the team that she was chosen to do these appearances, but she really wishes it was not when this was hovering over them. She distracts herself by deflecting the spells, she likes her freckles, the make-up lady can deal.

\---

She's sitting in a make-up chair again, at least this time she's getting paid for it. And she has coffee. It had been charmed for luck somewhere between her giving the P.A. her order and him bringing her the paper cup. She'd waved the charm off and had been about to offer the same to the other women but they'd started drinking theirs already. She didn't know them very well but she was fairly certain none of them were the kind to use such things as a matter of course. People who relied on luck charms didn't tend to make it as professional athletes. They probably weren't aware, she hadn't been able to find out online if any of them had ability. She wanted to ask, but their time together was based around the advertising campaign they'd all been contracted for and they were still practically strangers to each other. It wasn't exactly a personal question, but some people found it rude to ask before you befriended somebody. US Soccer had "outed" her shortly before the Olympics by adding it to her official bio so it was possible the other women knew, if they'd bothered to research her. Obviously the P.A. hadn't. She suspected they hadn't either, if they knew they probably would have asked her to check, or maybe it never occured to them someone would bother with a charm when they had an army of professionals working to make sure they looked good for their shoots.

\---

She likes New York in much the same way she liked Stanford, although they are very different. There's so much to do and see and See, and there's more people here. It's loud in a way the California Bay Area wasn't and more crowded, and it's more metal and cement than Stanford's greenery and adobe, but it's just as beautiful to her. She also likes the way the Noise is more organic here than it is in the silicon valley, with its strangely ordered electromagic drawing lines on and between everything like Tron come to life. There's also antiques still in affect here, and she enjoys exploring the city looking for them, gawking like a tourist.


End file.
